Chris Amirault

The delivery from Mountain Rose came today and my daughter's home sick, so I got cracking on the three bitters. I used John's recipe for Grapefruit Bitters from Recipe Gullet exactly (click). My working recipes for Erik's two are below, in half-batches and converted to weight measurements. Hess House Bitters (revision of Erik's revision, trying to lighten up on the spices): 2 cups rye (Old Overholt) 7 g dried gentian 15 g ginger (julienne) 3 g whole cloves 10 g cardamom pods (cracked) 4 g star anise 10 g cinnamon 4 g allspice Will let this sit for two weeks, strain, etc. Erik's Clementine bitters (based on this intriguing post). Peel of 3 Clementines (30 g), minced Zest of 2 medium oranges (15 g), minced 5 g cinnamon (about 2 sticks) 1 whole clove 10 g dried orange peel 3 g chamomile 10 g gentian 2 bay leaves 1 c vodka 1 c rye 1/2 c water 1 T molasses (both later)

Thanks as always, John. These reports are pipelines between us consumers and the (frankly heroic) men and women pulling this glorious food out of our shores. I'm interested to know more about the little differences this year. Any sense of how these prices will affect retail prices?

Thanks, Rochelle. I ordered my copy on Friday and will report shortly. Oh, and epicurious.com just named it one of its top ten for the year, in Best American Regional.

Thanks, Catew; I didn't read carefully, clearly. That's a far better option than, well, anything that isn't White Lily. All the other self-rising flours we've tried with Shirley Corriher's biscuits don't come close. If you've had those sublime biscuits, you know why I'm picky about the flour.

I'm having a devil of a time finding White Lily flour anywhere. Stores up here don't carry it, and the online options seem to be very limited -- drying up, even. The only option I can find is this Smuckers page, but they are gift sets, and I just want the self-rising flour for biscuits. Does anyone have any tips on (1) getting stores to carry this essential ingredient or (2) online sources that allow for the purchase of a five-pound bag?

Seems like you need to invent The Perfect, Albeit Brief, Moment Cocktail, Erik.

Just out, Jean Anderson's Love Affair with Southern Cooking is getting rave reviews. I haven't had the chance to check out a copy of the book, but that Amazon link looks mighty compelling. Sara Moulton fans will want to note the foreword -- but Society members know from Moulton's eG Spotlight interview what a big fan she is of Anderson. More information available at Anderson's website. Anyone got it? Reading it?

I didn't suggest that anyone was making that argument, Sam.

I'm not sure random is the right adjective. My guess is that most Peking X restaurants appeared in the 1970s or thereabouts, Szechuan Y a bit later, and if we set the way-back machine 40 or 50 years, when the crush of "Polynesian" restaurants started serving Cantonese food under tiki lamps and fake palms, the attempt at creating names that market to what the public wants becomes a bit clearer. Makes you wonder why restaurant owners think NYers have a noodle jones these days.

It strikes me that pretty much every bar has a whole lot of rules, some of them more explicit than others. It also strikes me that, while we seem to be focusing on the persnickety nature of cocktailian bars, lots of other bars -- gay, college, hotel, beach -- have just as stringent rules, though perhaps not the same sort of rules that would make Nick and Nora beam. The punishment for falling afoul can be more fierce as well: try ordering one of Audrey's Earl Gray MarTEAnis at a biker bar (offering to guide the mixologist if s/he's ignorant, of course) and see what happens. But isn't variety the spice of life here? I had a glorious time at Alchemist's Violet Hour recently, and the points Sam and others have made about the environment contributing to the quality of the experience are spot on. Four of us quietly savored our cocktails; I enjoyed a friendly chat with one bartender without competing with a din or throng; on and on. However, I also had a great raucous time not too long ago at the Red Fez, a Providence hang-out with a dark, extremely loud second-floor bar that fits my elbows just right now and then. You can't hardly hear yourself think in there over the drum-and-bass or Roxy Music, much less chat reflectively about the Laphroaig smoke lingering across your rocks glass. I remember the first time I had a drink at the Plaza in NY, a wonderful experience that taught my twenty-something self a lot about what Manhattan was and Manhattans are. But isn't a boilermaker in a dive just the thing now and then, even for those of us who don't drag knuckles on the ground nor order drinks with -- shudder -- vodka?

Oh, man. You've nailed me. Thoughts: For those of us who benefit from externally imposed arbitrary structure, this is sheer genius! I plan to dive in this weekend. Does anyone have a recipe using mudfish paste, pine nut honey, five pounds of tarbais beans, Pickapeppa sauce, and smoked pigs' feet? And are there any others willing to take the plunge?

On November 8, I had the great fortune of joining three other eGullet Society volunteers for the Tour at Alinea. The courses we had are reflected in the fall tours detailed so well by Biskuit, edsel, and Ron. We didn't take any photographs, and I don't want to bore by going course by course as others have more skillfully done before me. So, instead, a few notes. I've had some fine meals in my life. Some of them were executed with precision and finesse; some of them were soulful; some of them were sophisticated explorations of taste & texture that changed the way I thought about certain ingredients; some of them were a ton of fun. It's really strange to say that the Tour at Alinea wasn't merely the best meal I've ever had. The meal trumps all other meals I've had in each and every category. It's so much better than anything else I've ever had that, well, it's taken me three weeks to figure out how to begin talking about it. The entire arch of the five-hour meal is literally overwhelming. Take, for starters, the remarkable "wine" pairings. I put wine in quotation marks because the trout course is paired with Masumi "Arabashin" Junmai Ginjo Namazake from Nagano Prefecture, a palate-altering sake that follows the pretty good champagne cocktail that kicks off the evening. That sake transformed the trout; the trout transformed the sake: going back and forth from one to the other built to a level of intensity that most meals -- hell, most experiences -- never even approach. And this was course two of twenty four, most of which reached this peak of interplay between food and drink. The meal fills you with awe. The service team was impeccable. Let's face it: selling some of the kitchen's dictatorial edicts can be tough, particularly for a table of wiseacres eager to know why we can't reverse the order of sniffing and eating or where exactly the polenta came from. But despite our hanky-panky, the team was friendly, coordinated, precise, and ridiculously well informed about everything. Even the folks pedaling shtick had truly interesting shtick. Our mohawked sommelier was channeling Orson Welles, a 19th century carnival barker, and Randall Grahm with great panache; by the end of the night, I wanted to slap the guy on the back and buy him a boilermaker. The kitchen's skill is breathtaking, and each plate exhibits the skill in a dozen ways. Take the burnt bread puree, one element in the sweetbreads course. As a guy who orders toast "dark -- you can't make it too dark. I won't send it back even if you think it's burnt," I found it a little odd to see my perversion show up as dots on plates. But those dots were remarkably complex explosions of Maillard on the Edge, and they drew sweetness out of sweetbreads that I didn't know was there. Burnt bread, a revelation. This isn't clever food. This is remarkably sophisticated food that has no sense of limits concerning what it should or shouldn't be. Though a few things were merely terrific (the pineapple course, say), the list of sheer triumphs is long: the lamb that changed with each cubist sauce perspective; beef heart both gamey and subtle; potato turned up to 11; the wagyu/matsutake bite; a tagliatelle dish with merely white truffles, butter, and cheese that allows each of those elements to touch, entwined, the sublime. I'm sorry. I'll stop. I know that this is purple prose. What can I tell you? I'm suffering from a gastronomic version of Stendhal's syndrome. If at all you can, you just gotta go.

The James Beard Foundation recently listed the following 20 books as essential to every cook's library, whether expert or novice. Press release here, and the list is below: James Beard, American Cookery Rick Bayless, Authentic Mexican Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking Volume One Julia Child, The Way to Cook Marcella Hazan, Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Desserts Sharon Tyler Herbst, The New Food Lover’s Companion The King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion Sheila Lukins and Julie Rosso, The Silver Palate Cookbook Deborah Madison, Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone Jacques Pépin and Léon Pererr, Complete Techniques Jancis Robinson, The Oxford Companion to Wine Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, The Joy of Cooking Julie Sahni, Classic Indian Cooking Chris Schlesinger and John Willoughby, The Thrill of the Grill Rick Stein’s Complete Seafood Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook Barbara Tropp, The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking Have at it, friends. What's missing? (As this is a marketing gambit, only currently in print books need apply.) What's there that ought not be?

Yeah, the brandy and absinthe combo is interesting, I think. Substitute lemon for half of that brandy and you've got a Nicky Finn, doing similar things with that combo but a heck of a lot less sweet than this sweet Dream.

What a great sentence: "The housemade pappardelle, wide and toothsome, with appealingly pinked edges, provides an excellent foundation, even as it drowns in a deluge of the terrific ragu." So much nuanced information in a little package (unlike the overflowing the pappardelle dish). I wish I had a reviewer to add to this list. Now, the worst reviewer you've never heard of... that one I've got covered.

Bryan, can you say a bit about what was going on with the rest of the patrons? Were they grokking the concept? Part of what made R4D such a pleasure was the amiable interactions with Will and his staff; were other diners chatting with the gang?

I'm usually in the Craddock "Drink it while it's laughing at you" crowd, but I agree with the Sazerac and Manhattan points above. I think that a lot of non-sour rye or bourbon-based drinks get interesting later in the game, particularly if there's a significant bitters component. (To me, sours flatten out.) Due to the relative heft of sweeter ingredients, some layered drinks sweeten up over time, which many drinkers enjoy. I made this variation of a Golden Dawn, moving from the orange juice that I can't abide toward a more traditional sour with lemon, Cointreau, and bitters, and called it a Maize Morning: 3/4 Applejack 3/4 Plymouth gin 3/4 Apry 1/2 Cointreau 1/2 lemon Regan's orange bitters 1 t grenadine Shake all but the grenadine, strain, and pour the grenadine into the base of the drink carefully to create the sunrise effect. It's a pretty potent drink and on the large side for a classic cocktail, so for the lighter drinkers, the grenadine resting on the bottom at the end is a nice finish. Over time, it also starts cold and warms up, like, you know, day break. If you go for that sort of metaphor.

Hot turkey sandwiches have never done it for me, and after being required to make traditional Thanksgiving items for the better part of a week, I'm not eager to concoct something "creative." I wanna nap. So I look forward to the weekend after Thanksgiving, when my wife makes her family's pot pie with leftover turkey and stock made from the carcass. Had it tonight. Bliss.

Marlene, do you find that it's slow? The Amazon ratings suggest that it takes several minutes to get through a few cups.

Andie, do yours have cranks that go round in circles and drive the wires, or handles that you squeeze to make those little wheels skim the top of the screen? Brooks, thanks. Have you used any of those?

Well, the recipient would say, "It can be used in one hand while the other stirs, is faster than a strainer, and directs the output more accurately than a sifter." Let's stipulate that flour sifters are not for everyone, shall we? For those that have and use them, do you have any specific recommendations? For example, this OXO sifter looks all well and good, but the ratings are mediocre; apparently it takes a very long time to sift. Feedback?

Yeah, I know that strainers work, and it's what I use. But it's a gift, people! Help me out! Any recs?

Save for this topic on cleaning 'em (consensus: you don't need to clean 'em), there's nothing in eG Forums on flour sifters. I have a baker in the family who needs a new one that has a large capacity and can move quickly through a lot of flour. What're your recommendations?

OK, I'm diving in, with a plan to make Hess's House bitters, Erik's clementine bitters, and John's grapefruit bitters. I just placed an order with Mountain Rose Herbs, who have 4 oz packages of gentian, etc. More when I get the package.

Say more, Charles.